Do I Need Both Microsoft Office and Apple iWork?

If you’re already using iWork, you might have noticed that the Office applications Excel, Word, and PowerPoint provide roughly the same features. Therefore, you might wonder whether you should scrap iWork.

Remember the following maxim: If the iWork suite that you’re familiar with is doing the job, consider keeping it.

After all, iWork is a powerful productivity suite on its own, capable of producing results that are easily as good as or better than Office 2011, and you can buy the iWork applications individually from the App Store. Also, Apple provides conversion filters that allow you to open and save Office documents so that you’re not isolated from the Office crowd.

On the other side of the coin, buy Office if

You prefer the menu design and features of Office 2011.

You’d like to keep most of the same commands replicated in the same places as the Windows version of Office.

You want to seamlessly share documents with coworkers who use Windows Office 2010 or 2013 on your network or through e-mail.